Patrick v. Perfect Parts Co.
| Decision Date | 12 November 1974 |
| Docket Number | No. 58592,58592 |
| Citation | 515 S.W.2d 554 |
| Parties | Tom PATRICK, Jr., a minor, by Tom Patrick, Sr., his next friend, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PERFECT PARTS COMPANY, a corporation, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Samuel A. Goldblatt, Fox, Goldblatt & Singer, Inc., St. Louis, for plaintiff-appellant.
Burton H. Shostak, Kramer, Chused, Kramer, Shostak & Kohn, St. Louis, for appellant on the appeal.
W. Munro Roberts, Jr., George F. Kosta, Jay G. Newquist, Heneghan & Roberts, Inc., St. Louis, for defendant-respondent.
This is an action for damages for personal injuries suffered by a seven-year-old boy as a result of burns received while playing with denatured alcohol manufactured and bottled by defendant for sale at retail to the public by others. Verdict and judgment were for plaintiff. On motion of defendant that judgment was set aside in accordance with its prior motion for a directed verdict, and judgment was entered for defendant. Plaintiff appealed from that judgment to the Court of Appeals, St. Louis District, which affirmed. On motion of plaintiff we ordered the case transferred to this court and, after review as authorized by Mo.Const. Art. V, § 10, V.A.M.S., we affirm.
Plaintiff alleged in his petition and the case was tried and submitted on the theory that his injuries were caused by negligence of defendant in failing, by not properly labeling the bottle, to warn him adequately of the dangerous propensities of of denatured alcohol; i.e., it is flammable and will burn. In a memorandum filed with its order, the trial court stated that one of its reasons for setting aside plaintiff's verdict and judgment was that plaintiff had failed to prove causation, that is, that the failure to so warn was the proximate cause of his injuries, because plaintiff's evidence was that he was in possession of the knowledge such warning would have imparted to him. In effect the court said: assuming that defendant negligently failed to put a label on the bottle warning of the dangerous propensities of the chemical, liability by defendant would not attach because there could be no causal connection between this omission and the injury since plaintiff's knowledge precluded the connection and, thus, liability.
The evidence, largely undisputed, is that two or three days before the incident in question, plaintiff, age 7; his sister, Lisa, age 10; and a friend, Ronnie Meyers, age 12, purchased some small bottles of sulphur, charcoal and sodium nitrate at a nearby hobby shop to make gunpowder. The three children returned to the garage behind plaintiff's parents' home where they mixed the chemicals in a tin butter bowl. When the boys pounded or lit this mixture it 'fizzed,' burned a hole through the bottom of the bowl and began to smoke. Plaintiff's mother saw the smoke swirling from the garage, rushed to the scene, threw the substances away and spanked the plaintiff, and told him never to play with chemicals again.
Two or three days later, plaintiff, Ronnie and Lisa went to the hobby shop again. This time they purchased two small bottles of denatured alcohol and some magnesium ribbon. These items were hid in an ash pit next to the garage. The next day plaintiff and Ronnie bought some matches, got these articles from the ash pit and tried unsuccessfully to burn the magnesium. The testimony is not clear as to whether some of the alcohol was poured in a lid and lit, or poured on the ground and lit. But, in any event, alcohol was spilled on plaintiff's...
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